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When Nintendo announced that its next game console was going to come with just 32GB of internal storage, my heart sank. I'd been planning to go all digital for the Nintendo Switch -- making it a portable console that always had my favorite games on tap at a moment's notice. Instead, I found myself pre-ordering the console with a physical copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild. The compromise didn't last long. Between the tedium of swapping game cards and my fear of losing them, I wound up going all digital anyway. Within six months, my Nintendo Switch ran out of space.

The Nintendo Switch is a neat little console -- but its debut was almost overshadowed by its flagship launch game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The game was lauded as a long overdue evolution on the Zelda formula, and it deserved the praise, too -- it's an objectively excellent adventure game that brings the classic Nintendo franchise into the modern era.

Still, fans were worried Nintendo would stumble when it came to the game's DLC packs. Rest easy, Hylian hero, Breath of the Wild's first DLC drop is light, but actually pretty good. Mostly because it focuses on what made the game great in the first place: survival, exploration and problem solving.

Nintendo doesn't just want you to download add-on content for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: It wants you to snap up more figurines too. The gaming giant has unveiled four amiibo designed with the DLC (most notably The Champion's Ballad) in mind. Each represents a champion from one of Hyrule's races: Mipha (from the zora), Daruk (goron), Revali (rito) and Urbosa (gerudo). Nintendo hasn't said when they'll arrive or what they'll unlock, but it's safe to say they'll be available in time to use with the DLC packs arriving this year.

When Nintendo used The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to tease its new hybrid portable game console, a lot of us were left confused. Sure, portable Skyrim sounds great, but is it enough to get gamers to buy the game for a second or even third time? No? How about if Bethesda throws in support for motion controls, Amiibo and adds in the Master Sword?

One of Nintendo'spremium franchises is coming to smartphones, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The Legend of Zelda, co-developed by Japanese developer DeNA, will be be its next mobile title after Animal Crossing, the unnamed sources say. That lines up with president Tatsumi Kimishima's recent comments that Nintendo will release two to three smartphone titles per year.

At this point, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has become a video-game phenomenon. Much has been said about how it's a new take on the dusty old Zelda formula, or on how it represents a fresh direction for Nintendo in general, by buoying its new Switch console. But Breath of the Wild deserves just as much credit for how it subverts and reaffirms the power of the open world.

In the real world, an ocarina is a lot less functional than the magical one Link has in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. As Nintendo 64 lovers know, the Hyrulian hero can use his instrument to do things like manipulate the rain and switch between night and day. In our realm, ocarinas just sound nice. Allen Pan, better known as Sufficiently Advanced on YouTube, decided he was tired of playing his ocarina without mystical results. So, he did what any Zelda fan with the technological know-how would do: create a smart home setup controlled by an ocarina.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn't just the series' best game in years, it's also unlike any title in the series -- it's an open-world experience where you're free to find your own solutions to challenges. But just how did Nintendo manage to pull off such a radical change in direction? Don't worry -- it's happy to explain. The Game Developers Conference has posted a talk from Nintendo's Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Satoru Takizawa and Takuhiro Dota that describes how the Breath of the Wild team broke from the highly linear experiences of past Zelda games. It's a textbook example of how to make a good open-world game regardless of the genre.

Anyone who grew up playing the Legend of Zelda series has found themselves daydreaming about adventures on the plains of Hyrule. What would it really be like to traverse the lands of Zelda'skingdom, travel through time to solve puzzles and defeat an evil overlord with nothing but your own wit and bravery? It's an exciting fantasy, but temper your expectations. If escape room designer SCRAP's Defenders of the Triforce experience is any indication, the reality of a real-life Zeldaadventure involves a lot of paperwork.

Game consoles don't tend to have stand-out, killer software at launch, but Nintendo is bucking the trend again. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild will be released in concert with the console itself March 3rd. Not picking up the new console? The game comes out the same day for the Wii U. If this seems familiar, it's because Nintendo did something similar with Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, launching it on the Wii and Gamecube simultaneously.

In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, music had a pretty big role. For instance, all it took to summon a rainstorm or change the time of day was playing a few notes on an the titular musical instrument. And now you can get in line to buy those iconic tracks and more on 180 gram vinyl. Hero of Time is scheduled to release second quarter of next year and will set you back $40 plus shipping. Rather than just pressing the MIDI score from the Nintendo 64 game to wax, however, a 64-piece orchestra performed the tunes. I see what you did there, iam8bit.

Each year that Geoff Keighley's Game Awards distances itself from its SpikeTV past, it gets subsequently less embarrassing to watch. And without a doubt, The Game Awards 2016 was the best show yet. Couldn't watch the stream? Well, that's too bad, but we've got you covered. Below you'll find a list of the night's big winners in addition to all the trailers that made their world premieres onstage at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. There were a few emotional moments onstage as well, including Ryan Green accepting the Games for Impact award for That Dragon, Cancer; Keighley presenting his friend Hideo Kojima with a statue for Industry Icon and Nolan North throwing striking voice actors under the bus during his acceptance speech for best performance.

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avgaminglegendofzeldamobilenintendonintendodirectpersonal computingpersonalcomputingskywardswordthelegendofzeldavirtualconsolewiiwiiuzeldaThu, 01 Sep 2016 11:26:00 -040021|21463779https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/27/nintendos-nes-retrospective-book-looks-like-a-game-cartridge/https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/27/nintendos-nes-retrospective-book-looks-like-a-game-cartridge/https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/27/nintendos-nes-retrospective-book-looks-like-a-game-cartridge/#comments
Nintendo's NES Classic Edition isn't the only nostalgia bomb the company is dropping this fall. Nope, Playing With Power: Nintendo NES Classics from strategy-guide publisher Prima Games is en route for this November as well. The hardcover boasts 320 pages of interviews from the NES era, bits of old-school advertising and "priceless excerpts from Nintendo Power magazine back issues." Oh hey, hand-drawn maps and character art are on tap as well. Here's to hoping some of those are from Howard and Nesterartist Bill Mudron.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of those games that practically everyone has played and regards fondly. The landmark 1998 game was incredibly influential, and when folks put together lists of "best games of all time," it's usually within the top ten. Ocarina also marked the long-running franchise's move from a top-down view to full 3D thanks to the leap in power that the Nintendo 64 provided. But how do its dungeons stack up to previous games in the series? Specifically, A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening? YouTuber Mark Brown answers just that with a smart and thoughtful examination of the game.

The next Legend of Zelda game is introducing big changes to the series. It features a big, open world. Our hero can jump, climb and cook. For the first time in 30 years, Link actually changed his shirt -- but it's changing more than the gameplay of one franchise. It's also changing Nintendo's toys-to-life figures: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's toy series will feature the first Amiibo with moving parts.

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avbreathofthewilde32016gaminglegendofzeldanintendovideogameszeldaTue, 14 Jun 2016 14:50:00 -040021|21395272https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/14/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/14/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/14/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/#comments
Nintendo kicked off its E3 2016 livestream with a frankly gorgeous Zelda trailer, showcasing what we'll get to play and experience when the game eventually lands in 2017 on the Wii U and NX. The style of the entire thing is somewhere between Wind Waker andTwilight Princess, albeit cranked to the max. This is Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and it already looks pretty amazing. Was that voice-acting? At least four outfits, including armor? Cooking? Gliding? Oh boy.
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breathofthewilde3e32016gaminglegendofzeldalegendofzeldabreathofthewildnintendonxpersonal computingpersonalcomputingvideowiiuzeldaTue, 14 Jun 2016 12:05:00 -040021|21395186https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/25/legend-of-zelda-nyc-preview/https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/25/legend-of-zelda-nyc-preview/https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/25/legend-of-zelda-nyc-preview/#comments

You won't be left out of the E3 festivities just because you can't make it to Los Angeles for E3 Live. Nintendo is giving gamers in New York City an opportunity to play The Legend of Zelda for the Wii U between June 14th and June 19th if they're willing to jump through a few hoops. To start, you'll have to show up for a "Super-Fan Signup Day" at Nintendo's New York store on the morning of June 11th to have a chance of playing. If you're one of the 500 people to make the cut, you'll have to line up at the store on June 14th to get a wristband and make an appointment for some hands-on time.

After getting snubbed in the inaugural class of World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees, 25-year-old Sonic the Hedgehog is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Along with Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, The Oregon Trail, The Sims, and Space Invaders, Sega's 1991 release is on the list of 2016 hall of famers at the National Museum of Play.

There's good news and bad for Nintendo's upcoming Legend of Zelda open-world title for the Wii U console. First the bad: It's been delayed again, so it won't arrive now until 2017. The good news is that it's going to come out on the next-gen Nintendo NX console, which, by the way, Nintendo just revealed. In a (roughly translated) tweet, Nintendo Japan says that it pushed back the game "for further quality improvement," adding that it will be released "simultaneously" on the Nintendo NX.

Gamers, you have permission to feel old once again: The Legend of Zelda just turned 30. Nintendo released the classic action-adventure in Japan on the Famicom Disk System (it wasn't even a cartridge at the time) all the way back on February 21st, 1986, kicking off one of the biggest franchises in video game history. The series has since sold tens of millions of copies -- over 75 million at last count -- and has had a presence on virtually every Nintendo system to date.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD lands on the Wii U on March 4th, complete with a lineup of new gameplay treats. The first is a new item, the Ghost Lantern, which lights up when it's near an evil spirit known as a Poe. The Ghost Lantern should make the game's Poe soul-seeking quest much easier, Nintendo says in a press release. This is different than the standard Lantern from the original Twilight Princess, which lights the way and wards off nasty beasties throughout the game.

Let's face it: In the world of video games, Nintendo exists in a state of constant scrutiny. More often than not, the Japanese company is targeted for being "behind the times" or "out of touch" with what its fanbase wants. Looking back, however, we see a more dynamic mish-mash of good and bad decisions. In 2015, Nintendo teased us by promising to build mobile apps, but pleased us by adding some unexpected classics to its digital game library and announcing a new game console. The company had breakout hits like Splatoon, but also fumbled on launch dates, failing to deliver Star Fox Zero and Zelda Wii U by year's end. How is Nintendo doing, really? Let's take a look back at the highs and lows of Nintendo's year and find out.